Browsed byTag: VeganIn

Last month we showed you the vegan highlights of Manchester. Now we’re turning our attention to England’s capital city, famous for Holmes, Dickens and…vegan burgers, apparently!

MoFo regulars Jojo from Vegan In Brighton and Jenny from Jenny Marie provided us with these brilliant posts about some of their recent vegan finds in the Brick Lane area of London. You can check out there full posts here and here, but let’s see some of their highlights!

Mooshies is the first of two burger joints that both of these bloggers rave about, and it’s not hard to see why! We’re talking fish burgers, jackfruit, bhajis…very tempting indeed. Here’s Jojo’s pulled jackfruit burger.

Alternatively, you could pick up your burger at Pomodoro e Basilico, which doesn’t look too shabby either! You can find them at Brick Lane Market, which is home to lots of other vegan options…

…such as the Peanut Butter Bakery where Jojo got this blueberry cheesecake doughnut…

…or this vegan chorizo roll that Jenny found.

And if you’re looking for something colourful and sweet, follow Jojo’s lead and look no further than Vida Bakery, home of this delicious looking rainbow cake.

Clearly Brick Lane is a great area for vegan visitors to London, but it’s not the only one! Over at Vegan London you can search by area for all the plant-based options in the city.

And The Whole Ingredient‘s free, downloadable PDF guide to London, organised by meals (breakfast, brunch, dinner, etc). Including sections on pizza delivery places, vegan grocery stores, vegan markets and so much more, the guide is invaluable for anyone looking to eat vegan in London!

What are your favourite spots in London? Any ideas for our next VeganIn destination? Let us know!

Manchester may not be the biggest city in the UK, but it’s definitely one of the best when it comes to vegan grub! Alongside a wealth of chain restaurants in the city centre with vegan options or even separate menus, there are some great independent cafes and restaurants you should know about. Here’s a little taster of some of the top spots in this great city – including the Best Vegan Restaurant in the UK (according to the 2016 VegFest awards).

That honour goes to V Rev, a vegan junk food extravaganza. MoFo regular Jenny (formerly of Spice Box of Earth, now Jenny Marie) reviewed it as soon as it reopened in new premises late last year. Don’t those burgers look incredible? This place is just as famous for its dessert as for the gigantic burgers.

Another all-vegan sensation is Teatime Collective, home of big breakfasts, spectacular burgers and tacos, and an incredible array of cakes and ice cream. Here’s Jenny’s review. (They also put on incredible Christmas dinners every year too, FYI.)

Back in 2013, MoFo star Caroline from Tea and Sympatico posted on the theme of the Northern Quarter, Manchester’s arty, alternative area which is home to dozens of vegan options. You can work your way through all of her posts from this one, but here are a few highlights:

There is no shortage of cheap and cheerful little places offering rice’n’three, including This’n’That Cafe. One such place, Little Aladdin, recently went all vegan too!

Cake is also plentiful in this quarter of Manchester, and you can always find something sweet in Fig and Sparrow, a lovely cafe and shop. (Personal tip: you can’t go wrong with a brownie from this place!)

Restaurant reviewer Vegan Olive is another great resource for vegans visiting Manchester. You can check out her reviews here, including for this slap-up breakfast at Trof (also in the Northern Quarter). If you’ve ever wanted to try vegan black pudding, here’s your chance!

Olive also has a review of The Pasta Factory, famous for its excellent ravioli, all-vegan alcohol menu and homemade parmesan. Yum!

Venturing further afield from the Northern Quarter, here’s a newcomer to the scene: 100%-vegan fine dining restaurant The Allotment. There are more Manchester reviews to be found here on Herbivores’ Heaven.

You can also find the quintessential British experience in Manchester, with numerous places offering a vegan afternoon tea. This one at The Garden is a particular favourite – it’s so flavoursome, you won’t even mind the lack of scones!

So whether you want a big breakfast, delicious cake, fast food or fine dining, Manchester has you covered!

And April lived many people’s dream by going to Paris for her honeymoon. Just look at all the food she and her new husband devoured! (For more food inspiration from April, check her out on Instagram.)

Cafe des Deux Moulins, 15 Rue Lepic, 75018 Paris, France

I really wanted to check this place out on my honeymoon to Paris – I mean, it’s Amélie’s cafe! Unfortunately, they don’t have much for vegans, and the waiter seemed a bit exasperated with me when I tried to hand him my “I’m vegan and I don’t eat these things” card. My husband and I ended up with a baguette, some jam, fruit juice, and espresso. It was still tasty, for all that it was simple.

It was also our first foray into the world of Paris coffee – a few places have non-dairy milk (especially the 100% vegan restaurants), but nobody orders cafe mochas here. You get espresso. Everywhere that serves it generally gives it to you with a packet of sweetener (raw sugar and/or agave nectar at the fancy places, plain sugar elsewhere) and some kind of sweet (usually a small square of chocolate or a cookie, which was often a vegan Speculoos!) As for the cafe, it’s adorable and they know it – there’s a few pictures of Amélie throughout, but don’t expect to see the clear board where she writes the menu backwards; it’s not there.

My husband and I decided to go to Le Potager de Charlotte for weekend brunch. If you decide to do the same, COME HUNGRY. I can not stress this enough. There’s a ton of food, and it’s all delicious. We started with several types of fresh bread and a few different spreads, all made in-house. I also got fresh juice and hot chocolate, pancakes with fruit, a breakfast chia oat pudding, and an avocado spinach salad. It’s a good thing we were walking so much while in Paris!

Hank Vegan Burger, 55 Rue des Archives, 75003 Paris, France

Cozy, comfy, and quick – that’s Hank Vegan Burger. They have a bunch of inventive topping combinations for their burgers, as well as sides, drinks, and desserts. The majority of the dining area is upstairs from where you order. We loved our burgers, fries, cookie, and cake!

We ended up at Cafe Ginger after an attempt to go to a vegan restaurant down the street that wasn’t open. It’s a tiny macrobiotic cafe inside Grand Appetit, which is a macrobiotic and natural foods store. When you go, pay attention to their hours – we got there towards the very end of their open times, and they had pretty much stopped serving their main menu, and we were left with ordering something out of the case. That being said, we ended up with a couple slices of delicious vegetable tart, side veggie salads, and hot tea. Lucky for us, there was a customer in the restaurant who was happy to explain to us what the owner was telling us (the owner had no English, and my French wasn’t quite up to the task). Interestingly, the customer turned out to be an employee of the restaurant down the street to which we had originally tried to go!

Veg’Art, 123 Rue Oberkampf, 75011 Paris, France

All vegan pizza, all the time! This was, by far, the smallest restaurant we went to while in Paris, consisting of only 4 or 5 tables, and barely enough room to walk between them. All of the pizzas are personal size and have some very inventive toppings, and they had a delicious strawberry cake while we were there (not sure if that’s a regular menu item or not; my French wasn’t up to the task of communicating with the gal behind the counter.)

Cafe Pinson, 6 Rue du Forez, 75003 Paris, France

The ordering system at Cafe Pinson was a bit confusing to us, and we ended up sort of pointing at things in the case while the gal behind the counter tried to explain what we could get. For one price, you get an entree and main dish, or main dish and dessert. They also have fresh juices and coffee. Luckily, the gal behind the counter had enough English to catch that we were vegan, and was able to point out which things were vegan and which were just vegetarian. The salads and main dishes were fresh and healthy, and I was happy to get hot cocoa with vegan whipped cream on top.

Vegan Folie’s, 53 Rue Mouffetard, 75005 Paris, France

Vegan Folie’s is mainly a bakery with punny names for their sweets (the James Brownie, Rosa Pinks, Red Astaire, and Choc Norris, for example). They also have giant sandwiches, which are probably enough for most people to split (though my husband wanted a whole sandwich to himself – again, I was glad for all of the walking we did!).

Gentle Gourmet Café, 24 Boulevard de la Bastille, 75012 Paris, France

This was, by far, the fanciest restaurant that we went to the entire time we were in France. Also, the priciest, but for a splurge, it’s a great choice. Gentle Gourmet goes for quality over quantity, and their plating is exquisite. We experienced all sorts of complex flavors and textures. For dessert, we got the sampler plate, which was the first time in my life I’ve ever eaten French macarons! These were made with aquafaba and were little bites of absolute heaven. Reservations are very important here – if you don’t have one, you might not be able to eat there that day.

La Verrière, 24 Avenue de Tourville, 75007 Paris, France

We weren’t quite sure what to expect from this restaurant, and found a sort of buffet set-up. We spent some time foraging amongst the offerings, and came out with all sorts of fresh veggie dishes, as well as tasty savory and sweet tarts. The ambience is spare and modern (makes me think of IKEA a bit).

Crepe de la Joie, 4 Rue du Fer À Moulin, 75005 Paris, France

Seriously, y’all – vegan crepes! My husband and I each got one savory crepe (galette) and one sweet crepe. They were delicious, and we also got hot cocoa with non-dairy milk to go with.

Un Monde Vegan, 64 Rue Notre Dame de Nazareth, 75003 Paris, France

Not a restaurant; this is Paris’ only 100% vegan grocery store. They had *two whole cases* of vegan cheese, which was quite exciting. My husband and I stocked up on vegan cheeses, “meat” sticks, drinks, and chocolate to snack on at our apartment and on the train to Angers. We also got a vegan paté that was quite tasty!

Le Potager Du Marais, 24 Rue Rambuteau, 75003 Paris, France

This restaurant is larger than some of the others we visited in Paris, but not by a lot, and diners will be seated in fairly close quarters with others. Also, reservations are important here. This was one of the fancier places we went, and the flavors in the dishes were interesting and fun. This was another place where I got super-fancy vegan hot cocoa (yay!) and delicious pudding.

Facebook friend Donna (whose son created the Is It Vegan? app) agrees with this recommendation, and notes that reservations are essential here as she saw people being turned away. She also shared a few notes on a couple of her other favourite places in Paris: